Published 5:30 am, Friday, September 17, 2010

At a meeting in Dallas today, the nine-member commission has the opportunity to lay this case to rest with a convincing analysis of the disputed evidence that resulted in the conviction and 2004 execution of Willingham for setting a 1991 Corsicana house fire that killed his three children. A last-minute appeal for a stay of execution to Texas Gov. Rick Perry was not granted.

If Willingham's prosecution involved flawed forensic science, as documented by a national arson expert, the course of the commission investigation reeks of bad political science.

Shortly before Craig Beyler, chairman of the International Association of Fire Safety Science, was to deliver a report to the commission nearly a year ago criticizing the arson ruling, Gov. Perry replaced the commission chair and several members. The new chairman, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, has since done everything possible to limit the scope of the probe. He tried and failed to get the commission members to rule the Willingham case outside their jurisdiction. Gov. Perry has continued to defend his decision to allow Willingham's execution to go forward, calling him "an absolute monster who killed his own kids."

As reported by the Associated Press, a draft report written by Bradley and three other commission members will be debated at the meeting today. It concludes that arson investigators met the standard of practice in place at the time. Beyler contended they did not, describing their ruling of arson in his report as invalid even by the standards of 1991.

Perhaps most indicative of the slant of the commission investigation under Bradley is the fact that Beyler has not been asked to defend his report, for which he was paid $36,000 by the state.

Instead, the commission sought responses by the state fire marshal and Corsicana officials, who predictably endorsed the original findings.

As Chronicle columnist Rick Casey analyzed it, "So the commission's committee reaches a tentative conclusion in secret, then asks the two major arson investigating agencies in the case to defend themselves against Beyler's report, then doesn't bother to get Beyler's response." Beyler told the AP, "I would characterize their interest in my opinion as next to zero."

The majority of forensic professionals on the commission have a last chance today to take the politics out of the process and salvage a balanced analysis of the evidence.